GM Foods and the Misperception of Risk Perception

Public opposition to genetically modified (GM) food and crops is widely interpreted as the result of the public's misperception of the risks. With scientific assessment pointing to no unique risks from GM crops and foods, a strategy of accurate risk communication from trusted sources has been advocated. This is based on the assumption that the benefits of GM crops and foods are self-evident. Informed by the interpretation of some qualitative interviews with lay people, we use data from the Eurobarometer survey on biotechnology to explore the hypothesis that it is not so much the perception of risks as the absence of benefits that is the basis of the widespread rejection of GM foods and crops by the European public. Some respondents perceive both risks and benefits, and may be trading off these attributes along the lines of a rational choice model. However, for others, one attribute-benefit-appears to dominate their judgments: the lexicographic heuristic. For these respondents, their perception of risk is of limited importance in the formation of attitudes toward GM food and crops. The implication is that the absence of perceived benefits from GM foods and crops calls into question the relevance of risk communication strategies for bringing about change in public opinion.     

Farmer Knowledge and Risk Analysis: Postrelease Evaluation of Herbicide-Tolerant Canola in Western Canada

The global controversy regarding the use of genetically modified (GM) crops has proved to be a challenge for "science-based" risk assessments. Although risk analysis incorporates societal perspectives in decision making over these crops, it is largely predicated on contrasts between "expert" and "lay" perspectives. The overall objective of this study is to explore the role for farmers' knowledge, and their decade-long experience with herbicide-tolerant (HT) canola, in the risk analysis of GM crops. From 2002 to 2003, data were collected using interviews ( n = 15) and mail surveys ( n = 370) with farmers from Manitoba and across Canada. The main benefits associated with HT canola were management oriented and included easier weed control, herbicide rotation, and better weed control, whereas the main risks were more diverse and included market harm, technology use agreements (TUAs), and increased seed costs. Benefits and risks were inversely related, and the salient factor influencing risk was farmer experiences with HT canola volunteers, followed by small farm size and duration using HT canola. These HT volunteers were reported by 38% of farmers, from both internal (e.g., seedbank, farm machinery, etc.) and external (e.g., wind, seed contamination, etc.) sources, and were found to persist over time. Farmer knowledge is a reliable and rich source of information regarding the efficacy of HT crops, demonstrating that individual experiences are important to risk perception. The socioeconomic nature of most risks combined with the continuing "farm income crisis" in North America demonstrates the need for a more holistic and inclusive approach to risk assessment associated with HT crops and, indeed, with all new agricultural technology.     

Understanding Public Perceptions of Benefits and Risks of Childhood Vaccinations in the United States

In the face of a growing public health concern accompanying the reemerging threat of preventable diseases, this research seeks mainly to explain variations in the perceived benefits and risks of vaccinations among the general public in the United States. As Mary Douglas and Aaron Wildavsky's grid‐group cultural theory of risk perception claims, the analytical results based upon original data from a nationwide Internet survey of 1,213 American adults conducted in 2010 suggest that individuals’ cultural predispositions contribute to the formation of their perceptions pertaining to vaccine benefits and risks at both societal and individual levels, in conjunction with other factors suggested by previous risk perception literature, such as perceived prevalence of diseases, trust, knowledge level, and demographic characteristics. Those with a strong hierarch orientation tend to envision greater benefits and lesser risks and conceive of a relatively high ratio of benefit to risk when compared to other cultural types. By contrast, those with a strong fatalist tendency are inclined to emphasize risks and downplay benefits while conceiving of a low vaccination benefit‐risk ratio. Situated between hierarchs and fatalists, strong egalitarians are prone to perceive greater benefits, smaller risks, and a more positive benefit‐risk ratio than strong individualists.     

Disentangling the Influence of Value Predispositions and Risk/Benefit Perceptions on Support for Nanotechnology Among the American Public

Using nanotechnology as a case study, this article explores (1) how people's perceptions of benefits and risks are related to their approval of nanotechnology, (2) which information‐processing factors contribute to public risk/benefit perceptions, and (3) whether individuals’ predispositions (i.e., deference to scientific authority and ideology) may moderate the relationship between cognitive processing and risk perceptions of the technology. Results indicate that benefit perceptions positively affect public support for nanotechnology; perceptions of risk tend to be more influenced by systematic processing than by heuristic cues, whereas both heuristic and systematic processing influence benefit perceptions. People who are more liberal‐minded tend to be more affected by systematic processing when thinking about the benefits of nanotechnology than those who are more conservative. Compared to less deferent individuals, those who are more deferent to scientific authority tend to be less influenced by systematic processing when making judgments about the benefits and risks of nanotechnology. Implications are discussed.     

Elicitation of Expert Judgments of Uncertainty in the Risk Assessment of Herbicide-Tolerant Oilseed Crops

One of the lay public's concerns about genetically modified (GM) organisms (GMO) and related emerging technologies is that not all the important risks are evaluated or even identified yet--and that ignorance of the unanticipated risks could lead to severe environmental or public health consequences. To some degree, even the scientists who participated in the analysis of the risks from GMOs (arguably the people most qualified to critique these analyses) share some of this concern. To formally explore the uncertainty in the risk assessment of a GM crop, we conducted detailed interviews of seven leading experts on GM oilseed crops to obtain qualitative and quantitative information on their understanding of the uncertainties associated with the risks to agriculture from GM oilseed crops (canola or rapeseed). The results of these elicitations revealed three issues of potential concern that are currently left outside the scope of risk assessments. These are (1) the potential loss of the agronomic and environmental benefits of glyphosate (a herbicide widely used in no-till agriculture) due to the combined problems of glyphosate-tolerant canola and wheat volunteer plants, (2) the growing problem of seed lot contamination, and (3) the potential market impacts. The elicitations also identified two areas where knowledge is insufficient. These are: the occurrence of hybridization between canola and wild relatives and the ability of the hybrids to perpetuate themselves in nature, and the fate of the herbicide-tolerance genes in soil and their interaction with soil microfauna and -flora. The methodological contribution of this work is a formal approach to analyzing the uncertainty surrounding complex problems.     

Consumer Responses to Integrated Risk‐Benefit Information Associated with the Consumption of Food

The risk analysis of the health impact of foods is increasingly focused on integrated risk‐benefit assessment, which will also need to be communicated to consumers. It therefore becomes important to understand how consumers respond to integrated risk‐benefit information. Quality‐adjusted‐life‐years (QALYs) is one measure that can be used to assess the balance between risks and benefits associated with a particular food. The effectiveness of QALYs for communicating both positive and negative health effects associated with food consumption to consumers was examined, using a 3 × 2 experiment varying information about health changes in terms of QALYs associated with the consumption of fish (n = 325). The effect of this information on consumer perceptions of the usefulness of QALYs for describing health effects, on risk and benefit perceptions, attitudes, and intentions to consume fish was examined. Results demonstrated that consumers perceived QALYs as useful for communicating health effects associated with food consumption. QALYs communicated as a net effect were preferred for food products associated with negative net effects on health, while separate communication of both risks and benefits may be preferred for food products associated with positive or zero net health effects. Information about health changes in terms of QALYs facilitated informed decision making by consumers, as indicated by the impact on risk and benefit perceptions as intended by the information. The impact of this information on actual food consumption choices merits further investigation.     

Equity in Social Risk: Some Empirical Observations

In societal risk analysis the equity of the distribution of risks is often an important consideration owing to the special nature of health risks. We empirically validate some assumptions about equity that have been discussed in the decision analytic literature. Our results show that the way fatalities are distributed throughout a society is considered along with the number of fatalities in evaluating alternative policies involving mortality risks. The concepts of ex ante equity and ex post equity are both shown to be important in judgments of fairness. We next present a decision model based on multiattribute preference theory incorporating the number of fatalities, as well as ex ante equity and ex post equity. When ex ante equity and ex post equity are positively weighted in this fair-risk model , options with more equal risk distributions are ranked higher. Next we empirically show that the distribution of benefits has an impact on judgments of fairness. The fair-risk model does not include information on the benefits distribution, so it would apply when benefits are distributed equally or when the decision maker wishes to not include benefits in the model. We briefly discuss how the notion of proportional equity can incorporate benefits into judgments of the fairness of risk distributions. We then include benefits in a more general model in which fair risk-benefit combinations are those that are exchange equitable. A key implication of this envy-free risk–benefit model is that an unequal distribution of risks may be preferred if it is accompanied by a compensatory differential in benefits consistent with peoples' preference tradeoffs between received benefits and assumed risks. Finally, we discuss how perceived deservedness may influence judgments about equity. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of research on alternative notions of equity for policy makers dealing with social risks.     

Weighing Health Benefit and Health Risk Information when Consuming Sport-Caught Fish

Fish consumers may incur benefits and risks from eating fish. Health advisories issued by states, tribes, and other entities typically include advice about how to limit fish consumption or change other behaviors (e.g., fish cleaning or cooking) to reduce health risks from exposure to contaminants. Eating fish, however, may provide health benefits. Risk communicators and fish consumers have suggested the importance of including risk comparison information, as well as health risk-benefit comparisons in health advisory communications. To improve understanding about how anglers fishing in waters affected by health advisories may respond to such risk-risk or risk-benefit information, we surveyed Lake Ontario (NY, USA) anglers. We interviewed by telephone 4,750 anglers, 2,593 of which had fished Lake Ontario in the past 12 months and were sent a detailed mail questionnaire (1,245 responded). We posed questions varying the magnitude of health risks and health benefits to be gained by fish consumption, and varied the population affected by these risks and benefits (anglers, children, women of childbearing age, and unborn children). Respondents were influenced by health benefit and health risk information. When risks were high, most respondents would eat less fish regardless of the benefit level. When risks were low, the magnitude of change in fish consumption was related to level of benefit. Responses differed depending on the question wording order, that is, whether "risks" were posed before "benefits." For a given risk-benefit level, respondents would give different advice to women of childbearing age versus children, with more conservative advice (eat less fish) provided to women of childbearing age. Respondents appeared to be influenced more strongly by risk-risk comparisons (e.g., risks from other foods vs. risks from fish) than by risk-benefit comparisons (e.g., risks from fish vs. benefits from fish). Risk analysts and risk communicators should improve efforts to include risk-risk and risk-benefit comparisons in communication efforts, and to clarify to whom the health risks and benefits from fish consumption may accrue.     

Using Surveys in Public Participation Processes for Risk Decision Making: The Case of the 2003 British GM Nation? Public Debate

This article takes as its case study the “GM Nation?” public debate, a major participation process on the commercialization of agricultural biotechnology, which occurred in Britain during the summer of 2003. We investigate possible self‐selection biases in over 36,000 open questionnaire responses on the risks and benefits of genetically modified crops and food obtained during GM Nation? A comparison sample of equivalent responses from a statistically representative sample (n= 1,363) of the British general public obtained shortly after the conclusion of the debate is reported. This comparison shows that the GM Nation? open responses were indeed not fully representative of British “public opinion” regarding agricultural biotechnology. Rather, such opinion is not a unitary whole, but fragmented, with considerable ambivalence coexisting alongside outright opposition to GM agriculture. The methodological implications for multistage participation processes are discussed: in particular, the need to anticipate outcomes of complex design decisions, and to include representative public surveys as standard where measures of broader public attitudes to risk are an important objective.     

The Benefits and Costs of New Fuels and Engines for Light‐Duty Vehicles in the United States

Rising oil prices and concerns about energy security and climate change are spurring reconsideration of both automobile propulsion systems and the fuels that supply energy to them. In addition to the gasoline internal combustion engine, recent years have seen alternatives develop in the automotive marketplace. Currently, hybrid‐electric vehicles, advanced diesels, and flex‐fuel vehicles running on a high percentage mixture of ethanol and gasoline (E85) are appearing at auto shows and in driveways. We conduct a rigorous benefit‐cost analysis from both the private and societal perspective of the marginal benefits and costs of each technology—using the conventional gasoline engine as a baseline. The private perspective considers only those factors that influence the decisions of individual consumers, while the societal perspective accounts for environmental, energy, and congestion externalities as well. Our analysis illustrates that both hybrids and diesels show promise for particular light‐duty applications (sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks), but that vehicles running continuously on E85 consistently have greater costs than benefits. The results for diesels were particularly robust over a wide range of sensitivity analyses. The results from the societal analysis are qualitatively similar to the private analysis, demonstrating that the most relevant factors to the benefit‐cost calculations are the factors that drive the individual consumer's decision. We conclude with a brief discussion of marketplace and public policy trends that will both illustrate and influence the relative adoption of these alternative technologies in the United States in the coming decade.     

The Value of Improved National Exposure Information for Perchloroethylene (Perc): A Case Study for Dry Cleaners

Opportunities to improve our information about risk continue to arise and lead decision makers to indirectly address the issue of the value of improved information through resource allocation decisions. Statistical decision analysis techniques provide an analytical framework for valuing information explicitly in the context of regulatory decision making. This paper provides estimates of the value of improved national estimates of perchloroethylene (perc) exposure from U.S. dry cleaners in the context of EPA's recently promulgated National Emissions Standard for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) with emphasis on exposure information. Consistent with the NESHAP decision, we relied on EPA's technology and economic assessments. In this first cut analysis, estimates of the exposures of workers, consumers of dry cleaning services, and the general public are probabilistically characterized to reflect uncertainty about exposure and potency. We consider the net benefits of the different control options by assessing the associated changes in the total annual population risks and valuing them in monetary terms, with no constraints placed on maximum individual risks. The results suggest that the expected value of perfect information (EVPI) about potency exceeds the EVPI about exposure. Sensitivity analyses demonstrate how the choices of the valuation parameters and distributions used to characterize uncertainty in the model affect the estimates of the value of information.     

Exploring the Structure of Attitudes Toward Genetically Modified Food

Although it is often thought that the British public is opposed to genetically modified (GM) food, recent qualitative work suggests that most people are ambivalent about GM food and crops. In this article we explore the structure of attitudes in order to examine whether attitudinal ambivalence can be captured by more quantitative methods. Based on the finding that the perceived risks and benefits of GM food can be treated as independent dimensions, we propose a four-way typology of attitudes, consisting of a positive, negative, indifferent, and ambivalent group. This study showed that the differences between the four groups could best be described by three main dimensions: (1) a general evaluative dimension, (2) an involvement dimension, and (3) an attitudinal certainty dimension. While these different attitudinal dimensions have generally been studied in isolation, we argue that they should be studied collectively.     

Perceived Risks of Conventional and Organic Produce: Pesticides, Pathogens, and Natural Toxins

Public risk perceptions and demand for safer food are important factors shaping agricultural production practices in the United States. Despite documented food safety concerns, little attempt has been made to elicit consumers' subjective risk judgments for a range of food safety hazards or to identify factors most predictive of perceived food safety risks. In this study, over 700 conventional and organic fresh produce buyers in the Boston area were surveyed for their perceived food safety risks. Survey results showed that consumers perceived relatively high risks associated with the consumption and production of conventionally grown produce compared with other public health hazards. For example, conventional and organic food buyers estimated the median annual fatality rate due to pesticide residues on conventionally grown food to be about 50 per million and 200 per million, respectively, which is similar in magnitude to the annual mortality risk from motor vehicle accidents in the United States. Over 90% of survey respondents also perceived a reduction in pesticide residue risk associated with substituting organically grown produce for conventionally grown produce, and nearly 50% perceived a risk reduction due to natural toxins and microbial pathogens. Multiple regression analyses indicate that only a few factors are consistently predictive of higher risk perceptions, including feelings of distrust toward regulatory agencies and the safety of the food supply. A variety of factors were found to be significant predictors of specific categories of food hazards, suggesting that consumers may view food safety risks as dissimilar from one another. Based on study findings, it is recommended that future agricultural policies and risk communication efforts utilize a comparative risk approach that targets a range of food safety hazards.     

Risk Communication in the Real World

Rigorous health risk assessments of site-specific projects are generally little understood by nontechnical decision makers and the public and often appear to them to obfuscate a straightforward answer to their fundamental question: “Is the project safe?” The focus on risk, usually out of context of benefits, deprives the reader of the opportunity to make a fully informed decision on the proposal. While the risk assessment tools may need to be refashioned, confidence in the analytical process can be improved, partly through more citizen involvement, as well as through more effective communication of the conservatism of the assumptions, the thoroughness of the process, and the significance of the results in comparison to other commonly accepted involuntary exposures and risks.     

Dangerous News: Media Decision Making about Climate Change Risk

This article explores the role of broadcast news media decision makers in shaping public understanding and debate of climate change risks. It locates the media within a "tangled web" of communication and debate between sources, media, and publics. The article draws on new qualitative research in the British context. The main body of it focuses on media source strategies, on climate change storytelling in news, and the "myth of detachment" sustained by many news decision makers. The empirical evidence, gathered between 1997 and 2004, is derived primarily from recordings and notes drawn from a series of seminars that has brought together equal numbers of BBC news and television decision makers and environment/development specialists. The seminars have created a rare space for extended dialogue between media and specialist perspectives on the communication of complex climate change science and policy. While the article acknowledges the distinctive nature of the BBC as a public sector broadcaster, the evidence confirms and extends current understanding of the career of climate change within the media more broadly. The working group discussions have explored issues arising out of how stories are sourced and, in the context of competitive and time-pressured newsrooms, shaped and presented in short news pieces. Particularly significant is the disjuncture between ways of talking about uncertainty within science and policy discourse and media constructions of objectivity, truth, and balance. The article concludes with a summary of developments in media culture, technology, and practice that are creating opportunities for enhanced public understanding and debate of climate change risks. It also indicates the need for science and policy communities to be more active critics and sources of news.     

Interpersonal Amplification of Risk? Citizen Discussions and Their Impact on Perceptions of Risks and Benefits of a Biological Research Facility

Much risk communication research has demonstrated how mass media can influence individual risk perceptions, but lacks a comprehensive conceptual understanding of another key channel of communication: interpersonal discussion. Using the social amplification of risk as a theoretical framework, we consider the potential for discussions to function as amplification stations. We explore this possibility using data from a public opinion survey of residents living in potential locations for a new biological research facility in the United States. Controlling for a variety of key information variables, our results show that two dimensions of discussion—frequency and valence—have impacts on residents’ perceptions of the facility's benefits and its risks. We also explore the possibility that an individual's overall attitude moderates the effect of discussion on their perceptions of risks and benefits. Our results demonstrate the potential for discussions to operate as amplifiers or attenuators of perceptions of both risks and benefits.     

STRUCTURED OBSERVATION OF THE DECISION-MAKING ENVIRONMENT: A RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY ASSESSMENT

Information analysts gather and interpret information regarding organizational decision making. One source of information is the physical environment of the decision maker. A system for structured observation of the environment (STROBE) was developed and was used to gather information on administrators and medical directors of regional blood service organizations in the United States and Canada. Our results suggest that the reliability of STROBE is high and validity is acceptable, suggesting that STROBE may be useful in gathering data usually obtained through interviewing or observing behavior of decision makers.     

A Cross‐Cultural Study of Perceived Benefit Versus Risk as Mediators in the Trust‐Acceptance Relationship

Several recent studies have identified the significant role social trust in regulatory organizations plays in the public acceptance of various technologies and activities. In a cross‐cultural investigation, the current work explores empirically the relationship between social trust in management authorities and the degree of public acceptability of hazards for individuals residing in either developed or emerging Latin American economies using confirmatory rather than exploratory techniques. Undergraduates in Mexico, Brazil, and Chile and the United States and Spain assessed trust in regulatory authorities, public acceptance, personal knowledge, and the risks and benefits for 23 activities and technological hazards. Four findings were encountered. (i) In Latin American nations trust in regulatory entities was strongly and significantly (directly as well as indirectly) linked with the public's acceptance of any activity or technology. In developed countries trust and acceptability are essentially linked indirectly (through perceived risk and perceived benefit). (ii) Lack of knowledge strengthened the magnitude and statistical significance of the trust‐acceptability relationship in both developed and developing countries. (iii) For high levels of claimed knowledge, the impact on the trust‐acceptability relationship varied depending upon the origin of the sample. (iv) Confirmatory analysis revealed the relative importance of perceived benefit over perceived risk in meditating the trust‐acceptability causal chain.     

Reactions to Genetically Modified Food Crops and How Perception of Risks and Benefits Influences Consumers'' Information Gathering

Previous research has reported strong consumer perception that genetically modified (GM) food crops may lead to adverse outcomes in a number of different areas. This is despite the widespread promulgation of the potential benefits and opportunities ascribed to the same technology by many scientists and other experts. A computer-based information gathering and evaluation task was completed by 198 adults to assess the extent to which their initial focus on the dangers or opportunities of genetic modification, or both, could be ascribed to the manner in which they gathered information on the topic (heuristically vs. systematically). Results did not confirm the hypothesis that initial focus (risks, benefits, or both) predicted ongoing information gathering and evaluation behavior. Moreover, also contrary to prediction, most participants primarily used systematic strategies when deriving their initial position, regardless of that opinion. Participants found it difficult to achieve a balanced perspective on GM food crop, even though balanced argument, as measured by order of story selection and time spent reading, was preferred as the source of information. Perceived importance is probably the most influential variable determining information gathering about issues or events to which a level of risk is attached.